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Annexation of Charlestoivn and Som- 
erville to Boston. 



A CONDENSED REPORT OF THE 



ARGUMENT 



Hon. Ellis W. Morton, 

BEFORE THE COMMITTEE OF THE LEGISLATUKE ON TOWNS, 

In behalf of the petitioners for an act. authorizing the 

union of Charlestown ajid Somerville 

with Boston^ 

Monday, Feb. 27, 1871. 



BOSTON: 
ALFRED MUDGE & SON, PRINTERS, 34 SCHOOL STREET. 

1871. 



Annexation of Charlestotvn and Soni- 
erville to Boston. 



A CONDENSED REPORT OF THE 



ARGUMENT 



Hon. Ellis W. Morton, 

- BKFORE THE COMMITTEE OF THE LEGISLATUKE ON TOWNS, 

In behalf of the petitioners for an act authorizing the 

tuiion of Charlestoivn and Somerville 

with Boston, 

Monday, Feb. 27, 1871. 

X 

•A-^ 



BOSTON : 

ALFKED MUDGE & SON, PRINTERS, 34 SCHOOL STREET. 

1871. 



Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: 

1^ the outset of my argument, permit a suggestion 
that the various petitions referred to you do not call 
for a determination of the question of annexation it- 
self. In frequent instances petitioners request the 
legislature, by the exercise of its high authority, to 
adjust municipal boundaries, not in accordance with 
the sanction of a majority of all the people interested, 
but in concurrence with the will of certain people. 
This class of cases oftentimes presents serious dif- 
ficulties to the impartial legislator. 

The question now debated is a simple one : wheth- 
er a rectification of boundaries may be permitted in 
accordance with the deliberately recorded will of a 
majority of all the people of all the communities con- 
cerned. 

The committee might properly dispose of this in- 
vestigation with the limited inquiry — Are there any 
sufficient reasons why the union of Boston, Charles- 
town and Somerville, should not be assented to? but 
the tendency of the hearing has been towards the 
broader inquiry why it should be, and the committee 
will involuntarily entei'tain it. 

The very facts of this hearing and of the patient 
sittings of yourselves and your predecessors in simi- 
lar investigations, are a complete refatation of the 



theories of " natural boundaries," at least so far as it 
is sought to ai^ply them to the communities of Mas- 
sachusetts. 

A few untanght individuals, living in an isolated 
jDOsition, might be restricted to their territory by 
natural obstacles ; but when intelligent communities, 
ready in art and science, snbject water to ferries, as 
is the case with diflerent sections of Boston, or when 
they actually tie themselves together by a bridge, as 
Charlestown and Boston have done, then it is idle to 
discuss "natural boundaries." The bridge thrown 
over the railways between Boston proper and South 
Boston, does not difter as a connection, or as an 
avenue of travel, from that which spans the water- 
way between Boston and Charlestown. 

If there may be a "natural boundary," a river is 
certainly not often established as such in commercial 
places. It is regarded as a valuable commercial 
highway, the possession of which seems almost a 
condition of importance. I might cite in support of 
this suggestion, nearly every conspicuous city abroad. 

Boundaries must be adjusted to communities, not 
communities to boundaries. 

The committee will, doubtless, consider somewhat 
the sisrnificance and extent of the agitation in favor 
of annexation, and while the inquiry whether a 
majority of all the citizens in the three municipalities 
ai'e annexationists is unessential, and must be a 
subject of difference, yet it is incumbent upon the 
petitioners to show that a sullicient number desire it 
to entitle them to the altention of the legislature. 



In 1854, the legislature passed an act authorizing 
the imion of Boston and Cbarlestown, and it was ac- 
cepted by a very large majoiity of the voters of both 
cities, but subsequently set aside by the supreme 
court for a constitutional defect. Kever since, 
though repeatedly demanded, has an opportunity 
been given by the legislature to these cities to re- 
assert their desires in this domestic matter. 

The only time they have been enabled to declare 
their judgment, the majority of the people pro- 
nounced emphatically in favor of annexation. Since 
then, Boston has indicated her concern to enlarge 
her cramped limits by the annexation at diflerent 
times of Koxbury and Dorchester. This year, you 
have heard the voice of her citizens through her 
representatives in the city government, who have 
instructed the mayor to petition the legislature to 
submit the question of annexation to the decision 
of the j^eople, in recognition of the high principles 
of democratic government. In aid of this authorita- 
tive petition, you have those of a very large and 
estimable body of individuals. 

Charlestown has, since 1831, been troubled with the 
untiring attempts of a great number of her citizens 
to secure the exercise of a right, hardly a privilege, 
which has been once accorded. When, in a solitary 
instance, the right was admitted by the legislature, 
they unhesitatingly exercised it in favor of annexa- 
tion; but having lost the enjoyment of the fruits of 
its exercise through an oversight of the legislature 
itself, their almost yearly petitions, ever regarded 



6 

favorably by committees, have been rejected through 
the influence of the enormous county of Middlesex, 
the largest in the commonwealth, with its open 
treasury, which they themselves helped to fill, a 
county with which they have no harmony of interests, 
and within whose imcongenial grasp thc}^ are con- 
fessedly held solely because they pay her annually 
twelve thousand dollars more than they cost her. 

^N'ow these oft-disappointed, I may say aggrieved 
humble petitioners, men of high character and broad 
views, many of them men of wealth, with enterprise 
to direct its employment to the public advantage, all 
of them intelligent, earnest, progressive, good citizens, 
are here for the ninth time, supported by evidence of 
unusual worth; and if needs be, they will come for 
the tenth time to pray that their community may be 
suifered to enjoy the rights yielded freely to others 
similarly situated, rights, the enjoyment of which are, 
in their belief, absolutely necessary to the advance- 
ment of their personal prosperity and development 
of the highest public interests. 

The disposition of the citizens of Somerville has 
been declared in a i-esolve passed in a legal town 
meeting, April 10, 18G9, in favor of annexation, and 
by the election of Mr. BoAvman, the annexation can- 
didate, to the legislature, by a vote of 537 against 
237 for the regular republican nominee, who received 
the votes of many annexationists. 

It is true, that when their wish was found not to 
enlist the sympathy of the last legishiture, and when 
it was supposed repeated rebulfs would dishearten 



the annexationists of Charlestown, the territory of 
which Kes between Boston and Somerville, the town 
voted (38 to 12), without rescinding the previous 
vote, to ask this legislature for a city charter. Their 
first choice is annexation; failing in that, they desire 
a city charter, and it is but ordinary justice that they 
should have one. 

Passing the matter of public interest in the ques- 
tion of annexation, let me establish the palpable 
propriety of it. 

This is found in the smallness of the area of the 
three places, in the propinquity of Charlestown and 
Somerville to the business, working, actual centre of 
Boston, and in their entire identity of interest with 
her. 

Boston, the capital of the commonwealth, the 
commercial exchange of I^ew England, at least she 
should be, has but 9,902 taxable acres, between three 
and four thousand less than the average area of our 
towns. Charlestown, against the solemnly registered 
will of a majority of her citizens, suffers the grievous 
burdens of the support of the machinery of an inde- 
pendent government for a comparatively insignificant 
spot of 520 taxable acres; less land than many a 
Massachusetts farmer rules. If the State were cut 
up into towns of the size of this dwarf city, whose 
influence is nothing to that of the Middlesex county 
commissioners, we might boast of 8,522 instead of 
838. Somerville has only 1,975 taxable acres, taken 
from Charlestown, at a time when she had two dis- 



8 

tiiict and unbarmonious classes of citizens, — a com- 
mercial and manufacturing class, and an agricultural 
class, — living under a system of government not 
adapted to both. 

Wipe out tbe artificial outgrown boundaries of a 
former and difterent time, and unite tbese small par- 
cels of territory, and our commercial metropolis will 
have for her growth only 12,897 acres, less still than 
the average of the towns of the commonwealth, as 
against the 82,560 acres of Philadelphia. 

The city hall of Charlestown is but a mile from 
the city hall of Boston, and Charlestown divides 
Suffolk county. The whole of the territory of Som- 
erville, more easily and frequently accessible by rail 
than any other suburb of Boston, is nearer to her city 
hall than are the extremes of her southern line. 

There is an admitted community of interests be- 
tween the petitioners; they are actually one commer- 
cial people, whose business and employment have a 
common centre in Boston; their j^rosj^erity depends 
upon the same conditions; they are mutually benefited 
by the municipal enterprises, though unequally taxed, 
and they are alike injured by the municipal errors 
or neglect of Boston. 

The Charlestown merchant is nearer his Boston 
counting-room tban the majority of the Boston mer- 
chants, and the Somerville-Boston merchant is as 
])rompt at his warehouse as the merchant of the 
AVest or South End. Three-fouilhs of the polls of 
Charlestown find daily occupation in Boston, and 
Ibur-fifths of the business men of Somcrville have 



9 

their business in Boston, eight or nine hundred of 
their names being in the City Directory. The citi- 
zens of Charlestown have a more direct interest 
to-day in the removal of Scolhiy's buikliiig, ordered 
by the city governmant of Bjston, than a mijority 
of her own people. It appears by the report of the 
Gliief of Police, that i^)v. 12, ISTO, ad.iy ch)S3;i by 
chance, there passed out from B3 5taii over Oiii'b^ 
river and Warren bridges, between four o'clock P. M. 
and twelve o'clock, midnight, 12,150 persons. 

Having drawn attention to the three prominent 
facts which establish the proprietj'' of annexation, 
smallness of the territory of the several municipali- 
ties, the propinquity of Charlestown and Somerville 
to the business centre of Boston and their obvious com- 
munity of interests with Boston, permit me to direct 
your observation, upon the supposition that the com- 
mittee will choose to consider why annexation should 
be authorized, rather than the naked proposition 
Avhy it should not, to a few of the advantages which 
each municipality will realize; Boston will gain. 

First. A limited advance toward the equitable 
proportion of territory to which she is entitled, ignor- 
ing her dense population, simply as one of 338 cities 
and towns of the commonwealth, while the territory 
to be acquired is of peculiar value from its conven- 
ient situation to receive her growth, and the abun- 
dance of easy lines of communication with it. It 
will hardly be conceded that Worcester should be 
shorn of her size as being cumbersome or too large 



10 



for her proper develoi)ment, and for a systematical 
jDrovision for her increase; bnt if 21,094 acres is only 
a suitable area for her population of 41,107, how can 
you reasonably resist the infei*ence that this moderate 
expansion to an area of little more than half that 
extent must be of incalculable moment to a popula- 
tion of 25U,52(> ? 

It is the part, not of wisdom, but of the most 
ordinary prudence, to attempt to explore the im- 
mediate future, and make some seasonably adequate 
preparation for its necessities. Either the utmost 
jDossible growth of your capital is absolutely deter- 
mined and limited today by the rigidity of bounda- 
ries not adapted to the communities they fetter, or 
some territorial enlargement must occur to contain 
merely, not accommodate the natural regular in- 
crease of the next twen^^y-five years. AVithin less 
than that time every foot of our lately acquired 
districts will be as closely settled as the centre 
of Boston is now. The steady and rapid encroach- 
ments of trade are fast forcing a surrender of 
dwelling places. The aspect of some of our wards 
has been completely changed within five years. The 
annexation of Charlestown and Somerville is not in 
anticipation of future requirements, but is an inade- 
qiuite measure for the present. It is clearly for Bos- 
ton's interest that her present growth, at least, shoukl 
not be forced without her limits ; and too early at- 
tention cannot be devoted to systematic plans for the 
convenient, comfortable and healthful occupation of 
the territory which is to receive it. Parks, squares, 



11 



avenues and streets, proportioned to the magnitude 
of a city, and not measured by the wants of a town, 
should be seasonably laid out, and the enormous ex- 
pense of eventually remodelling a place of chance and 
irregular character avoided. 

Second. She will gain in the direction of her gov- 
ernment and atfiiirs generally, a population, very 
largely native, of 43,000 people whose interests 
are commercial, whose places of business are chiefly 
in Boston, whose property is there, and whose pros- 
perity depends entirely upon the prosperity of Bos- 
ton. 

The dangers to which the administration of the 
affaii's of a great city is exposed, arise not from its 
size or populousness, but from an abandonment of 
municipal concerns to a class whose motives are not 
regulated by important individual interests by those 
who are compelled to live in the suburbs, — subur- 
bans in name only. As traffic usurps place after 
place, changing the natural and ordinary distribution 
of population, it is seen that many parts of Boston 
are left to the management of the very poor and the 
very rich. Annexation will neutralize influences 
likely to be prejudicial and antagonistic, and tend to 
equalize the benefits of a government which should 
be for the common profit and happiness of all whom 
it directly aftects, and which should be shared in by 
those actually living within its close reach, and who 
are bound fast to the city that supports it, by inter- 
ests which no technical boundaries can restrain. 



12 

Third. Boston will receive credit in the markets 
of the world for additional population, really Bosto- 
nian, thoroughly commingled with her nominal pop- 
ulation in business association and social intercourse, 
distinguished from it in nothing, and separated from 
it only by an unfit boundary which has long since 
ceased to be more than an nnnecessary political line. 

The importance of commercial cities is very large- 
ly governed by the rank the census gives them; and 
numerous witnesses, familiar with finance and en- 
gaged in trade, have most earnestly challenged your 
attention to this point. The census returns of ^^opu- 
lation are always anticipated, not only by great rival 
cities, but by neighboring towns with sensitive inter- 
est. They fix their comparative rank and rate of 
growth; and the establishment of this rank is posi- 
tive, unaccompanied by any explanations of condi- 
tions Avhich might properly affect it. 

By the last census, Boston is declared the seventh 
city of the Union, and thus she is known at home 
and abroad. The stranger merchant only know^s 
that six cities of the United States are larger, 
by the common measurement, than our capital, and 
this fact regulates, to a great extent, his dealings 
with us. Her nominal rank deceives him; he is mis- 
led as to the real market which invites his trade; he 
is unaware that he has learned only the rank of a 
little munici})ality, and not that of the great com- 
munity who are ready to buy of him and sell to him. 

'J'he proclamation of her station, which limits largely 
her power of commercial attraction, is not supple- 



13 



mented by a statement that the sleeping-places of her 
merchants, artisans, mechanics and laborers, her true 
business, manufacturing and productive population, 
constitute separate municipalities to which they are 
credited, the existence of which lessens the common 
importance and lowers the rank of the great commu- 
nity of which they are parts, and which they should 
unite as districts and not divide into inconsequen- 
tial towns; nor is it stated that the higher rank of 
other cities is based upon the population of an area 
very much larger, and in one instance about eight 
times larger than that of Boston, an area embracing 
their entire population, and having space for their 
natural and attracted growth. 

By this proposed conformation of bounds to facts, 
the capital of Massachusetts will outrank, as it 
ought, the capital of Maryland. 

Fourth. Annexation will place in the united con- 
cordant control of Boston and the people to be made 
a part of her people, and to participate equally with 
them in all her concerns, the water front, the common 
anchorage of all nations, from the JSTeponset to the 
Mystic, and this advantage to our commercial metrop- 
olis is not oj)en to dispute. 

We now have one port of entry subject to the 
jurisdiction of two municipal governments. The 
liberal designs which have been entertained and 
partly carried out by Boston to make our docks 
and wharves tempting to shipping, and to furnish 
such conveniences to trade as shall lead it to a port 
one day nearer Europe than JS^evv York, must be 



11 



checked at that part of the port Avhere the narrow 
Charles river flows under the short avenues which 
connect the dwellings of Boston's business men with 
their counting-rooms. Beyond the Charles she is 
impotent. The interests of the whole port she can- 
not recognize ; they must be developed by two com- 
munities, which, separated, have manifestly diverse 
interests in some respects, but united, could have 
only identical collective interests to advance. 

Among the most strenuous advocates of annexa- 
tion are the representatives of railroad corporations, 
business and manufacturing corporations, and private 
individuals owning wharf property the other side of 
the Charles; they tell you that as Boston wharves 
they would have a standing which as Charlestown 
wharves they cannot obtain, even with an exposition 
of their contiguity to Boston. 

- It may be appropriate to remind Massachusetts 
leiiislators that the Tunnel railroad line, in which the 
State has its millions, has its water end in Charles- 
town. The shippers of the AYest, the carrying of 
whose produce it is to compete for Avith gigantic 
rival lines of ISTew York and Pennsylvania, are to 
be invited to choose their market not between the 
cities of Boston, IS'ew Y'ork and Philadelphia, but 
between historical, though commercially unknown 
Chai'lestowii and the first and second cities of the 
country; and the managers of that line and those of 
another Massachusetts line, controlling directly a 
thousand miles of i-oad, Avhicli has just purchased 
thirty acres of Charlestown wharf property, tell you 



1;- 

nnqnalificdly that such a choice must operate to the 
prejudice of their lines and consequently of the 
commonwealth. 

Fiftli. Boston will secure an incalculal3le fortune 
in the resources of the Charlestown Water Works, 
supplied by the almost inexhaustible Mystic, with a 
daily yield of more than 30,000,000 gallons of pure 
water, which can be increased by a connection with 
Horn Pond and the Lower Mystic. 

The territory of Charlestown is capable of con- 
taining a population of but 75,000 persons, which 
under ordinary regulations, Avill require 5,000,000 
gallons per day, — her present population requires 
less than one half that quantity. To-day, Boston 
is dependent upon, and purchases water from 
this source for a portion of her citizens. The 
present value of this boon, to be acquired by the 
pacific vote of its possessors, Avill not fail to be real- 
ized by the hundreds of manufacturers and the many 
thousands employed by them, their very bread con- 
tingent upon their employment, who have been noti- 
fied by the Boston Water Board since this legisla- 
ture convened, that unless Providence interposed 
with rain before a certain specified day, the water, 
without which their entire business must suddenly 
stop, w^ould be cut oti\ The threatening warnings 
and urgent appeals, rather commands, issuing from 
the office of the mayor, at the same time excited 
universal apprehensions of what might follow next. 

It may be answered that Boston might buy of her 
neighbor in case of a water famine; but there is no 



16 

power to compel her to sell, and thoug'h motives of 
friendship or desire of gain, might send her water 
through Boston pipes, none but the criminally 
improvident would neglect a fair, honorable opportu- 
nity to obtain an ownership in this great property 
rather than to let extremities dictate the terms of a 
temporary lease. "What may be the wants of Boston 
the thoughtful may conceive when they remember 
that in 1860 a committee reporting a bill to authorize 
what is now asked, mentioned among the benefits 
Boston could ofier Charlestown her "waste water," 
and then reflect upon the portentous fact, that in 
the short space of ten years Boston has come to 
within a few days of the end of the unrestricted al- 
lowance of water to her inhabitants. 

In response to the inquiry by counsel for our water 
board, I will say to the committee, that its president 
is a petitioner an 1 expected to be a witness. 

Sixth. It will give her access to the remain;ler of 
Suftblk county, which is now divided by the 520 acres 
of Charlestown. 

While this may not be of vital consequence, it is 
verv far from an indifferent advantas^e. The com- 
niunication of one portion of the county with the 
other should not be at the " mercy of the waves." 
Surely, a tolerable symmetry is to be sought for the 
first county of the commonwealth. 

I will let my "sixth" be my last. 

I have not endeavored to present all the main 
advantages of annexation to Boston; indeed, the 
task would be exhaustless and exhausting. I have 



17 



but indicated a few, in the train of which follow many, 
more or less prominent as viewed from the stand- 
point of different persons. 

Permit me now to advert to Charlestown. 

IsTot seldom does it happen, when the settlement of 
boundaries is considered, that a by no means trivial 
element in the matter is sentiment, an element strong 
and deep in its manifestations, and most worthy of 
respect. I still hear the lamentations of the citizens 
of " good old Dorchester " (" good old " are the reg- 
ular technical words for this class of cases), when 
the legislature, in wisdom amply proved, carved out 
a portion of that revered place for the people of Hyde 
Park ; and the wailings of " good old JSTorfolk," when 
Dorchester was subsequently empowered to link her 
fate with Boston. 'No such element is to be con- 
sulted now. From a place of reasonable extent, the 
" good old Charlestown " of a former day has been 
gradually hewn into sections, and all but a fragment 
of five hundred and twenty acres distributed among 
the people of Cambridge, West Cambridge, Stone- 
ham, Woburn and Somerville. 

Opposing counsel have appeared to expect me to 
assail the government and institutions of the com- 
munity, which I, as a Boston man, would consolidate 
with our own; and they have forestalled me by a 
defence of their schools, police and fire departments, 
streets, sidewalks, gutters and drains. They might 
have spared themselves this exertion. 

Boston schools and Charlestown schools are alike 

3 



18 



Massachusetts schools, and this is not the occasion 
to criticise any of them — the committee would be 
restive under it. The police of Charlestown is the 
police of an orderly law-abiding people, and the fire 
department may be assumed to be efficient. I have 
tried to lift this subject of your deliberations far 
above sidewalks and drains. Let them remain where 
they are. I will acknowledge Charlestown to be a 
monument of wonder and success, taking account of 
her unfortunate position. 

Charlestown will gain by annexation : 
First. An immediate and substantial enhance- 
ment of the value of her real estate. 

If this proposition had not been proved in pre- 
cisely similar cases, in the face and eyes of every one 
of us, it might require the attendance of some argu- 
ment, most easy to be made ; but I shall not, under 
the circumstances, heap u]) reasons in its support. 
When the territory of a little city becomes a part of 
and shares the prominence of a large one, when it is 
guaranteed the magnified development and fortunes 
of a great capital, its value is the value of the territory 
of a great, busy, attractive, growing metropolis, in- 
stead of that of a small, over-shadowed municipality. 
If one seeks a residence in Boston, he cannot be di- 
verted to Charlestown by the ofi'er of a better house 
for less money, and in a location more healthful, 
pleasant, and nearer the business and attractions of 
Boston, and simply because he is determined to be in 
name as well as in fact Bostonian, and persuasion 
cannot shake him. 



19 

A witness very familiar with the matter, one who 
steadfastly held the part of a leader in the annexation 
movement which finally established the permanent 
importance and prosperity of Roxbury, informs you 
that the act of annexation has doubled and quadru- 
pled the market value of her territory ; that it has 
made the conservative land owners who resisted it 
rich, and given the politicians who dreaded annihila- 
tion better offices with greater pay. Dorchester fur- 
nishes a like example. Her lands are in demand at 
high prices, and her public men have downy nests. 

I need go no further; indeed, it is claimed by my 
opponents that this inevitable result is the motive of 
the petitioners, who are said to be men of property; 
but that such a consequence will not help the man of 
moderate means, who hves in his own house, nor the 
poor man who has no house. 

Mr. Chairman, I have yet to learn of the first com- 
plaint from a man of moderate means, that his estate 
by singular fortune has been suddenly doubled in 
value ; that his resources, in vigorous manhood or old 
ao-e, in health or in infirmity, have been enlarged; 
that he has become the owner of ten thousand dollars' 
worth of property instead of five, or of twenty 
thousand dollars' worth instead of ten. The commit- 
tee will not attend with patience an argument to 
sustain the theory, that, all things considered, a 
man is a trifle better oft* in this world, at this period 
of its existence, with ten thousand dollars than with 
five thousand. As to the poor man, who has failed 
through improvidence or mishap to accumulate any 



20 

property, it might be said, that the welfare and hap- 
piness of his well-to-do friends is not to be sacrificed 
to his misfortune; but this is unnecessary. The 
truth is that any advanced value of land compels its 
improvement, multiplies the demands for labor, and 
leads to the erection of cheap, agreeable, wholesome 
houses for the laborer. The prosperity of one is the 
prosperity and hoj^e of all. 

Second. Annexation will change the scale of public 
improvements from that suitable for a somewhat ob- 
scure city, — obscure from its peculiar situation, being 
overtopped by Boston, — to that befitting a great city. 
Future developments will bear the impress of a dif- 
ferent hand. ISTew avenues and new public buildings 
will testify to the new magnitude of the locality. 
The streets of Charlestown and Somerville will be 
properly connected and characterized by a broad sys- 
tem, not likely to be adopted now, nor hardly feasible. 
It has been testified that Roxbury had very good 
streets before annexation ; but they begun nowhere, 
and ended nowhere. IN'ow they are of liberal pro- 
portions, and planned with better system. 

Third. It will put at rest the long and sharply 
contested question of the support of the bridges, 
and very soon win for the citizens of Charlestown, 
what the legislature cannot ordain, the substitution 
of a solid structure, of appropriate size and archi- 
tectural beauty, for the rude, unsightly, unstable, 
rotting, cramped, always choked, dirty, disgi-aceful 
bridges, which are utterly inadequate for their accom- 
modation. 



21 



The petition of John Skinner and Isaac "Warren 
and others, for permission to bnild a bridge over 
Charles river — to be free when paid for — was 
nrged npon the legislature nearly fifty years ago, 
with the statement "that the petitioners desired to 
increase the facilities of communication between 
Boston and Charlestown, and eventually to make 
them one municipality." 

Boston will not for many years to come be in- 
clined to join in the construction of a new Charles- 
town bridge of proper materials and dimensions, and 
Charlestown singly cannot a fiord to engage in such 
a costly enterprise, however much her citizens may 
suifer for want of it, and as to the matter of their se- 
rious inconvenience there is no division of testimony. 
This union alone will reconcile conflicting inter- 
ests, and lead to such action as will comport with the 
united requirements and be commensurate to the dig- 
nity and circumstances of a great, harmonious popu- 
lation. 

Fourtli. The citizens of Charlestown, doing busi- 
ness in Boston, as most of them do, will enjoy an 
equalization in taxation. 

IS'ow the Charlestown-Boston merchants are com- 
pelled to pay large taxes to the support of the 
schools and other institutions and departments of the 
Government of Boston, in the management of which 
they have no voice, and in the benefits of wdiich they 
have either none or a very unequal share. The be- 
ginning and end of their part of the matter is the 
enforced payment to officials of others' appointment 



22 



of so much money, in the distribution of which they 
have no volition. At home they must again con- 
tribute to the charges of other schools and other in- 
stitutions and departments of another government — 
a government of a territory smaller than many gen- 
tlemen's private estates. 

Fifth. Annexation will lift the public credit to 
the standard of Boston's credit. 

As a mere money-making transaction, it will be 
perceived that this gain in dollars and cents will be 
very great, sufficient to pay for many extensive public 
improvements, or if the diffei-ence were funded, to 
pay Charlestown's debt. Boston has a high credit 
in the financial markets of the world, where her 
standing is known, and her untarnished name duly 
estimated. The bonds of Charlestown, whose fame 
is fair, and whose pecuniary ability should be un- 
questionable, find only a domestic market, at a con- 
siderable discount, and at higher rates of interest 
than Boston bonds bear which sell at a premium. 

A knowledge of simple arithmetic will suffice for 
the calculation of the additional value annexation will 
impart to a public dollar. 

Sixth. It will work a just release from dispro- 
portionate county burdens. 

Charlestown should unhesitatingly and cheerfully 
respond to every equitable demand of the county. 
She should promptly open her treasury to the pay- 
ment of the last dollar and the last cent of her 
due proportion of the county expenses. She 
should, as a large community, submit even to liberal 



23 

calculations against her; but she should not, upon 
any theory of government, or any code of county 
commissioners, or principles of taxation, be treated 
as a source of profit to the county. This is wrong, 
it is illegitimate, it is a grievance. She is con- 
fessedly used as such a source of profit. It is not 
denied that she pays Middlesex county annually 
much more than she costs her. It is patent, from 
the statements submitted, that her severance from 
the county will be an honest relief tQ her of many 
thousands of dollars every year. 

Seventh. The new importance of Charlestown as 
a part of Boston, quickened by the impulses of a vig- 
orous healthful commercial centre, will save to her a 
large number of those who are continually turned 
into the strong current that bears away many of the 
best of her citizens to wider fields for the investment 
of their capital, whether money, brains or hard hands. 

She has found disappointment in the last census 
returns. Witnesses tell you that she is becoming 
noted as a place to leave; that men take her ofl&cial 
posts for a time and then migrate. The distinguished 
counsel for the county commissioners, has narrated 
with melting pathos what she has done for him ; he 
has made touching acknowledgments of what he 
owes her; he has told you with unaffected modesty, 
that she has honored him with the ci'owning rank of 
mayor. He, too, her favored one, has joined the 
departing throng, and is here now, a citizen of New- 
ton, the advocate of county authorities, resisting the 
petitioners' appeal, that the city which had the good 



24 



sense to set him in her foremost place, may be allowed 
to exercise the same sense in the disposition of a mat- 
ter affecting them vitally. Every able-bodied man 
who abandons one place for another is in himself a 
positive loss to the place he leaves, and a positive gain 
to the place in which he settles. What he takes with 
him is an additional loss. 

The sons of Massachusetts have gone to all parts 
of the country, they have been the pioneers in the 
manufacture c^ territories into States and in planting 
the villages which have swelled into thriving towns, 
and towns which have grown into strong cities. In 
this work they have done well; but now that the 
power of the West is year by year more marked, now 
that her capitals are eclipsing our own, a good policy 
for the commonwealth requires the retention within 
her own borders of her own population and the invi- 
tation of those who seek new homes to come here. 
This policy is now the true policy of all our munici- 
palities. 

Eighth. Charlestown will gain an ownership in 
the public libi'ary of Boston, a library which has few 
equals. 

The worth of such a proprietorship cannot be 
reckoned. The opportunity to freely use such a 
fountain of knowledge, of instruction and entertain- 
ment, is no mean privilege; but one that nuist exalt 
itself in the minds of her people, who have in their 
midst an annual circulation of 57,000 volumes from 
their library of about 30,000. 

But I must pause somewhere in my specilicalion of 



distinct adv^aiitages to be reaped by annexation. As 
the vision gradually opens upon the subject, the mind 
is filled with the outlines of its new aspects; and we 
try to imagine the face Charlestown would wear 
today, if the will of her people, as declared at the 
ballot box, sixteen years ago, had taken effect. 

I had intended to enumerate somewhat in detail 
the promises annexation offers to the thriving town 
of Somerville. I shall, however, content myself with 
a general statement that the various features the case 
presents in respect to Charlestown are discernible in 
its relations to Somerville. The value of her lands 
will rise ; she will be saved the exjDense of an inde- 
pendent city government, contemplated if annexation 
fails to receive the warrant of the legislature j she 
will be insured a development upon a scale designed 
in anticipation of the events of the prosperous future 
of a grand city; she will attract the immediate notice 
of Boston capital, and, like Boston, will get an 
ownership in the water works, which now supply her 
by contract. 

I will consume no time in undertaking to depre- 
ciate the testimony of the witnesses for the remon- 
strants, or to underrate them individually. They 
are entitled to respect and their evidence should be 
gravel}^ weighed. Some are office-holders, some are 
merchants, who always register themselves as resi- 
dents of Boston when away from home; one is a real 
Charlestown man, living there, keeping a little store 
there, and hoping to die there; and one is an ex- 



26 

collector of customs, under a former administration, 
who lives on a fancy farm in West Roxbury, and 
thinks the general tendency of things is bad. Few 
of them represented to any extent the very gross, 
and according to my learned friend, the rather debas- 
ing interests of property. They are fascinated with 
the simple beauty of town governments, imbued with 
their importance as schools for political education, 
charmed by the complete machine of a government 
working in the little space they inhabit. 

All this is very reasonable, if political discipline is 
the ohject of government, and not an incidental result 
of government; and it must be regarded very care- 
fully. 

The more active petitioners are accused of paying 
something more than a poll-tax, of having property 
to be appreciated, of being the promoters of business 
schemes, of being accessories to the filling of flats 
and building of wharves, of being corporators trying 
to enlarge their trade; in fact, they are charged with 
not being '' the poor man"; and I fear there is a dis- 
position to excite the laborers against their employ- 
ers in this matter. 

I must admit that these imputations are, in a 
measure, just; but as an offset, I will solicit the 
attention of the committee to a number of petitions, 
each bearing the names of several hundred Charles- 
town men, her worthy, honest, industrious citizens 
of small means, whose total property is less than 
twenty thousand dollars. The ])ersistent peti- 
tionei's are the same far-sighted men, who advo- 
cated years ago the erection of the bridges, and 



27 

recently the construction of the water-works, 
and the remonstrants are the same men who op- 
posed them. 

In reply to the claim of my learned opponent, 
that the petition of the city of Boston means 
nothing because the city officials are not here to 
press it, I desire to say, that I am in communication 
with the committee of the city government on 
legislative affairs, and it has been considered to be 
fairer to Charlestown, as she is not represented, that 
Boston should not appear to assume the aggressive, 
but that her petition alone should indicate her inter- 
est. That committee are ready to come here if de- 
sired, and offer any information or aid. The order 
for the city's petition was passed with the delibera- 
tion of delays, and I trust it is not to be explained 
away by the fluency of counsel. 

Some of the witnesses have supported their objec- 
tions to this measure by forebodings of bad govern- 
ment. They are very prompt to accord to the pres- 
ent government of Boston a merited commendation; 
they say that no ill results have attended the policy 
of annexation thus far; but their imaginations harbor 
undefined fears. Those fears are fed upon no expe- 
rience; on the contrary, experience in Philadelphia 
and elsewhere, establishes the good effect of annexa- 
tion upon municipal government; but they are the 
ordinary natural fears of the unknown and untried. 
Those who have been accustomed only to the very 
pleasant family government of Charlestown, distrust 
the project, which terminating it, seems to leave them 



28 



in foreign hands. They forget for the time that 
their mayor may still be their neighbor, that their 
aldermen will still be their friends, their councilmen 
chosen out of their own families, and their school 
committee men the same persons they have trusted 
heretofore. Will the participation of such men in a 
government contaminate it? Will their officials 
forget them? Are Roxbnry and Dorchester over- 
looked? The former sends her own trusted mayor 
to the city hall, and both have a full representation 
in each branch of the council, and their rei^resenta- 
tives have been able to secure for their constituencies 
what could not have been accomplished under 
separate governments. When my brother's search 
for corruption has ended with newspaper comments 
upon the questionable taste of the expenditure of 
a paltry sum by the unpaid city council for the 
customary badges and copies of Cushing's Parlia- 
mentary Law, and when you are assured that such 
is the determination of our citizens to have their 
affairs conducted not only with strict integrity and 
prudence, but with rigorous jDropriety, that a resolve 
to check even this trifling expenditure was carried 
into our last election, I think I am not called upon 
to vindicate the capacity of Boston, either with or 
without Charlestown and Somerville, for self-gov- 
ernment. 

I will occupy a little time in exposing the more 
general objects of the policy, as applied to this case, 
of combining the intelligence, the energies and the 
resources, and giving scope for the growth and pro- 



29 

gress of adjacent^ communities, stimulated by the 
same motives, impelled towards the same purposes, 
and enjoying the same prosperity, or suffering the 
same depression. 

Were your capital the only city in the world, 
and were your commonwealth the only state in the 
w^orld, we might tranquilly meet the smooth course 
of destiny w^ithout being animated by eager 
thoughts of preserving a name and power in the 
midst of rival cities, and restless, struggling, 
advancing sister states. But we cannot ignore the 
size and rank of othei* places ; we cannot view with 
indifference the provision of other capitals by the pol- 
icy of annexation, for i-apid and wholesome increase 
and augmented influence, while they are hotly con- 
tending with us for the trade and commerce which 
are our ver}^ life. There is now pending in the As- 
sembly a bill for the addition of 46,000 acres, with a 
population of 125,000, to the city of New York. 

It is hoped that your capital may attain and hold 
the place of one of the great centres of the world; 
that b}^ making; her more imposing, giving her new 
power of attraction and new capacities, she may exact 
the tribute the world pays to such centres. 

They are marked with stars upon the map ; they 
are lights by which their countries are seen, and 
their brightness or dimness discloses the condition of 
the state, whose index they are. Who speaks of the 
larger, though subordinate counties ? Their names 
are never heard, even in adjoining states. Abroad 
their existence is not dreamed of. Xowhere is the 



30 



force of attraction more striking than in a commu- 
nity where great numbers aggregate. The strength 
of a grand chorus draws the multitude. Humanity 
clusters. Individuals halt with the crowd. The 
larger the population, the faster will it gather. Is 
this fancy, to be put to flight by tests ? 

I will quote a paragraph from the Philadelphia 
^N^orth American of August last, illustrative of the 
opinion of a commercial rival, who has tried the widest 
range of annexation. 

" It seems not improbable that when Boston shall 
have succeeded in annexing all her suburbs, and shall 
stand forth in her true x>'t^oportions, there will be a 
large emigration thither of floating population from 
all parts of New England and the British Provinces. 
At present, a considerable portion of this population 
seeks IS'ew York and Philadelphia, and its peculiar 
energy and capacity for business have been of 
immense service to both places. . . . She will also 
be the centre of a much increased European immi- 
gration, which, from thence, will be gradually 
diffused throughout the interior, and afiect the whole 
character of the states there." 

Make a seaboard city imposing, and she commands 
the regard of every foreign or domestic shipj^er Avho 
has a vessel to freight, of every merchant who wishes 
to buy or sell, of every capitalist who has a dollar to 
invest, and of every citizen and laborer who seeks a 
market for his skill and his toil. 

It is contemplated to give your capital a new rank 
as a market, a new activity in great charities and 
philanthropy. 



31 

What bearing will all this have upon the state? 
If an unfavorable one, then only extraordinary bold- 
ness would enlist in behalf of the petitioners. 

My learned friend has said, that " The State can 
do without Boston better than Boston without the 
State." The character of the idea surprises me — it 
conceals a feeling that all our other cities and towns 
are more naturally a part of Massachusetts than Bos- 
ton; that the grand proportion of her loyal population 
which has settled in her chosen capital are not of the 
same consequence as the people of Middlesex, Frank- 
hn, or Hampshire; that the representatives from Suffolk 
are less Massachusetts representatives than are the 
representatives of other counties. Let it be remarked 
by the committee that the notion of a severance of 
Boston from the commonwealth, under whose benefi- 
cent protection and favor she has made herself a 
worthy capital of such a commonwealth, is presented 
by the counsel of the County Commissioners. The 
mere supposition of such an occurrence would not be 
hazarded by the petitioners. 

Sir, — In no respect are the state and the capital 
antagonistic; they are inseparable; they are not to 
be imagined as distinct divisions; the one is within 
and of the other. Boston is but a component part of 
the state; her prominence and her importance belong 
to the state ; her growth is the state's ; her wealth is 
the state's, and if annexation yields advantages to 
reinforced Boston, she accepts them as a member of 
the state, and not independently. 



32 

I have told you openly, that beyond the special 
jDrofits these three communities mutually look for, we 
covet, through a new rank, an additional weight in 
the balances of commerce. 

Sir, — When we have in mind the fact that the 
industry of the commonwealth is almost exclusively 
directed to trade and manufactures, and remember 
that her climate is harsh, her territory uneven, and 
her soil stubborn, we cannot repel the conclusion that 
the more important her chief port, the better it shall 
be estimated as a market, the better off will be all 
within the State. Every foreign merchant who trades 
here, every capitalist who is induced to invest here, 
every man who emigrates here and becomes a citizen, 
contributes to lighten the taxes of Berkshire. The 
great marts of traffic draw taxes from every civilized 
nation of the earth. Boston now pays a third of the 
state tax; she may just as well pay a half in a few 
years. In this, if in nothing else, it will be felt that 
her wealth is the wealth of the state. 

The bare hint of a variance between the interests 
of the state and Boston must be withdrawn from the 
light of truth. If there is any one spot more com- 
mon to all the inhabitants of the state than any other, 
that spot is her capital. Here, her trusted officials 
and the representatives of every district are found 
assembled for the public good; here, the business 
men of every county meet as on tlieir own ground; 
here, the wharves receive the raw material con- 
signed to your factories, and the warehouses receive 
your i)roducts. The commission merchant is the 



33 

agent of the manufacturer, and to conceive of their 
hostility is unnatural. Boston's stores and counting 
rooms are auxiliary to the shoe shops, the cotton 
mills, the woollen mills, the paper mills, the shovel 
works, the iron works, the manufactories generally 
of the country. In Pearl street is registered the 
transactions of the shoe shops of Lynn; in Franklin 
street the operations of the mills of Lowell; in State 
street the condition of the banks. Under Faneuil 
Hall is learned the results of our farming, and a lit- 
tle beyond, the fares of our fishermen. 

One witness has made the point that Boston as a 
city should be limited to the size of Massachusetts as 
a state. When you can gauge other states by ours, 
then will be the occasion to entertain such a sug- 
gestion. 

It is the aspiration of every municipality to make 
steady headway, and their constant exertions will 
alone preserve for the voice of Massachusetts its 
authority in the councils of the nation, and keep her 
in the vangnard of states. 

It has been objected that the political power of 
Boston may be unduly strengthened. Political power 
in the legislatnre is not the power of a town or a city. 
It springs from the people, and divided as they are 
into independent districts, it is a noticeable fact that 
the representatives of the several districts comprised 
in the large cities are almost invariably found on 

opposite sides. 

This fact is singularly conspicuous in the Boston 



34 

districts. I have never witnessed the exercise of 
Boston power in the legislature. 

Annexation will in no manner touch legislation. 
It no more affects the Charlestown and Somerville 
than it does the "Worcester districts. The same peo- 
ple, with the same politics, in the same districts, elect 
the same men. Everything touching legislation and 
politics is absolutely unchanged. 

I desire once more to remind you, after having 
patiently followed the range of my incomplete argu- 
ment, that much as it may be desired, necessary as it 
may be, you are not asked even to favor the propo- 
sition of annexation. We only appeal to you, and 
this we do most ardently, that three intelligent com- 
munities, exceptionally small in extent, may be sanc- 
tioned in the disposition of their own fate by the 
formal expression of their will. 



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